


Family

by bideru



Series: Tales from Silvermoon [4]
Category: World of Warcraft
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Found Family, References to Child Abuse, beneath the crunchy hard shell is the gooey interior, halduron is both a little shit and an excellent babysitter, i can't write anything without hawkstriders can i, liadrin just couldn't leave this talented little elf girl, lor has some ptsd there, lor'themar needs a hug, salandria is a precious bean, she just wanted to be a mommy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24420763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bideru/pseuds/bideru
Summary: Liadrin goes to Shattrath to speak to a Naaru and comes home with a child. She, Salandria, and Lor'themar react to Salandria's adoption.
Relationships: Liadrin & Salandria, Liadrin/Lor'themar Theron, Lor'themar & Salandria
Series: Tales from Silvermoon [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1747684
Comments: 10
Kudos: 32





	1. Liadrin

**Author's Note:**

> If you follow my work, I promise there's no angst in this one. No ugly crying needed!

Liadrin watched with narrowed eyes, her mind speeding like her hawkstrider before she’d given him to Halduron. Matron Mercy stood beside her, speaking occasionally, but she recognized the look in Liadrin’s eyes, a look so often unable to be given in the broken city, and did her best to let Liadrin come to her own conclusions, watching the elf’s strange golden eyes light upon one group in particular.

Liadrin had not come to Shattrath with this intent. When the matriarch of the blood knights had submitted her request to the Regent Lord, her purpose had been simple and humble: To seek forgiveness of the Naaru A’dal for the years of the abuse she and her blood knights had subjected one of its kind to. Imagine her surprise when A’dal had told her, not in words but in the strange melodic language of the Naaru, that M’uru had known of its fate, and had willingly gone first to Kael’thas and then to Silvermoon. M’uru had received a vision long ago, A’dal had told her, of its role to play in history, had known with each siphon of its own energies that it would one day restore a magnificent power to a young world and bring the Light to its people. 

Reeling from the revelation, Liadrin returned to the accommodations so generously offered by Voren’thal and the Scryers. Voren’thal himself had offered to show her around the city but Liadrin had declined. Had it been Lor’themar, she would have been happy to loop her arm through his, exploring every nook and cranny of the alien, ancient city, but Lor’themar was in Silvermoon, quite literally a world away. 

And that had brought her here, to the orphanage. She had visited the orphanage as she visited orphanages in all cities, for she had been an orphan once too. She had donated a large sum of gold that brought tears to the matron’s eyes, for she knew that orphanages relied on the kindness of others, and that in this broken city, the coin would be hard to come by. And now she sat, her eye having been caught, and Liadrin found fewer and fewer reasons to say no.

She knew she needn’t ask Lor’themar. She didn’t need his  _ permission _ . They weren’t married and they kept separate households. This would be her decision and hers alone. Though it wasn’t as though they had never spoken of it… 

Lor’themar may even like the idea.

Regardless. 

Liadrin spoke to Matron Mercy, who called over the little elf girl. She had startling green eyes and beautiful blonde hair.  _ Like Lor’themar’s _ , Liadrin thought fondly, before remembering Lor’themar had no say in this. The girl was dressed in the patchwork attire of donated clothing, not matching but close enough, and she shifted her feet as she looked from Matron Mercy to Liadrin and back. 

Liadrin knelt and the little girl gasped. “Your eyes are  _ sun-colored! _ ” she breathed in Common.

“So they are.” Liadrin smiled warmly. 

“They’re so pretty!”

“Thank you.” She was not much older than Liadrin had been, all those years ago. Young and scared and hoping, beyond hope, that Mother and Father would return. 

“Salandria,” Liadrin said softly, saying the name so carefully. Matron Mercy had been delicate in naming her, clearly asking an elf’s help.  _ Salandria _ was a good, classic choice. “How would you like to come live with me?”

Salandria’s face brightened. “Truly?” 

“Yes. I would love to have you.”

Salandria looked to Matron Mercy, who nodded, and began bouncing on the balls of her feet. “Yesyesyesyesyesyes! Iwannalivewithyou!”

Liadrin laughed, and Matron Mercy laughed, and Salandria did a silly little dance. 

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Liadrin promised her. She would shop this afternoon for new clothes and let the little girl have one last night with her friends. Liadrin knew sudden changes were difficult on children. They had been on her.

Salandria’s face fell. “Tomorrow?” she repeated. “Oh.” 

“Tomorrow,” Liadrin said firmly. “I’ll collect you for breakfast.”

“Okay.” The little girl looked uncertain. 

Liadrin smiled at her again, hoping it conveyed that she was indeed going to return. Matron Mercy had told her that Salandria had been orphaned as an infant, her parents killed by war. No doubt she had been through this countless times.

“Think about what you want for breakfast,” she told the little girl. “Nothing too heavy － we’ll be taking a portal afterward.”

The little girl had watched her leave, holding tightly to Matron Mercy’s hand.

* * *

The way Salandria’s face lit up the next morning left Liadrin both in love and heartbroken. Liadrin had been lucky as a child, having been taken in quickly by the High Priest Vandellor. Clearly Salandria had never known any parent but the Matron Mercy, who presided over the better half of a hundred other children. 

“I have a gift for you, Salandria,” Liadrin told her, holding out her bag of shopping out to her. Salandria shrieked but stopped short of actually reaching for it, looking to the draenei woman for permission.

“Go on, Salandria,” Mercy said with a smile. “Remember your manners.”

Salandria took the bag hesitantly and peered inside. The Lower City was not Silvermoon, and even the gift bag had been too much to procure there. The bag and the paper its contents were wrapped in both came from the Scryers’ Tier. The Lower City was practical, its every commodity for use, not ornamentation, and none of that had skipped Liadrin’s notice. She wanted Salandria to feel welcome, as she had always felt welcome in Vandellor’s home.

Salandria had carefully separated the bag from its contents. She had placed the paper side by side with a new outfit (Liadrin didn’t think she would be quite comfortable just yet with the finery of the Scryers’ robes － this tunic and trousers had come from Lower City), sturdy boots, and a fine knapsack. 

“I thought you’d like to wear new clothes to your new home,” Liadrin said gently. She tapped the knapsack. “And this is for all the things you’d like to take with you.” 

“Thank you!” Salandria was suddenly bursting with energy again. “Thankyouthankyouthankyou!” Liadrin grinned. 

“Go change and get your things,” she urged. “Be sure to say goodbye to all your friends. Take as long as you need.” Liadrin had not had the time to say goodbye to her friends, when her village had been razed by the Amani. She wanted to be sure Salandria had that chance.

* * *

After a tearful goodbye to Matron Mercy, and much hugging and kissing and shouting and whooping amongst the children, Salandria and Liadrin set off. The little girl had taken Liadrin to a stall run by a blood elf and asked him, in perfect Thalassian (with the barest hint of an accent), for “Skethyll berries! And cheese! Garadar cheese!” which the Blood Matriarch had to admit was very good, and when she asked Salandria where she might procure a cup of coffee, Salandria slipped her sticky hand in Liadrin’s and all but pulled her halfway across the Lower City to a small table owned by a human with a machine of gnomish make, and the coffee he sold her was quite good as well. 

“You speak Thalassian?” Liadrin asked her, as they rode the elevator to the Upper City.

Salandria nodded vigorously. “Lady Yura comes twice a week and teaches us. Well. Just the elves. Mister Voren’thal says all the elves need to know.”

Liadrin’s lips quirked at  _ Mister Voren’thal _ . “What else do you know?” She adjusted her own canvas bag on her shoulder as they stepped off the platform.

“Lots!” Salandria grinned. “I know how to dance,” and here she twirled, “and draw and make Arakkoa noises,” here she made the loud caws of the bird people from Lower City, “and a handstand!” That she also attempted, but with the knapsack on her shoulders, she promptly fell over.

Liadrin laughed. “That’s quite a lot.” She held tightly to Salandria’s hand as they entered the bustling Terrace of Light. Hundreds of people milled about, some moving with purpose, and it took Liadrin several tries to find the portals, tucked into an alcove along one wall. It was Salandria who found them, to Liadrin’s surprise.

“What we looking for?” she asked.

“Hmm? Oh. Portals,” Liadrin said distractedly. She was trying to find an elf in the crowd, no one nearby speaking Common and she uncertain of the Draenei word for  _ portal _ . “I live very far away. I took a portal to come here.”

“Why don’t you ask them?” Salandria pointed to a Shattrath peacekeeper. Very few of them spoke Common, in Liadrin’s experience. She hummed.

“My Draenei is not very good,” she said at last. She did not think it wise to immediately seem as though she were incompetent to the child she had just adopted. Her hand felt empty just then and when Liadrin looked down, Salandria was gone. “Salandria?”

The girl had dashed to the peacekeeper, an imposing man with wide shoulders and wider pauldrons. He knelt before her as Liadrin had, and listened intently as Salandria talked animatedly to him in Draenei. He responded, brow furrowed, and Salandria pointed to Liadrin, waving her over. 

“He wants to know where we going.”

“Oh, um. Silvermoon. Azeroth.” Liadrin supposed it should have occurred to her that Salandria spoke Draenei. Shattrath was, after all, a Draenei city.

The peacekeeper gestured vaguely with open palm, but without understanding the words Liadrin couldn’t tell the location he was indicating. Salandria, however, took Liadrin’s hand and began pulling her away, and Liadrin called her apologies and thanks in Common over her shoulder.

* * *

Her assistant had been dispatched the moment they’d arrived to ready her home for a little girl, her spare room turned into a little girl’s room, and by late afternoon, Liadrin found herself putting away Salandria’s new wardrobe while the little girl dozed on her couch. Off world travel and a new city had taken a lot out of her, Liadrin mused. She thought she would let the girl sleep and they would have a late dinner. Perhaps tomorrow she would take her to Quel’Danas and the Sunwell. A peaceful first excursion, and the chance to see what her parents had died for. The chance to brighten the spark Liadrin had seen flicker briefly in the orphanage, the one that had drawn her to Salandria in the first place. 

She draped a blanket over the girl and brushed the hair from her face. This little girl had been hers for less than twelve hours and already Liadrin felt as though she’d found the part of herself that had been missing for so long.

* * *

If Liadrin had thought she and Salandria would breakfast alone, she would have been sorely mistaken. Waking to the smell of fried fruit, hotcakes, and searing meat, Liadrin gently extricated herself from the little girl and slipped from her bed. (Salandria had snuck in sometime in the night, whispering tearfully that it was too quiet without the familiar noises of the orphanage. Liadrin couldn’t fix that, but she could offer the girl the comfort of a warm hug, which Salandria had gladly taken, letting Liadrin stroke her hair until she’d fallen back asleep.) Quietly she closed her bedroom door and padded through her apartment. In the doorway of the kitchen she stopped, watching the muscles in Lor’themar’s back as he cooked, until he turned around and spoke first.

“I knew I’d heard you, Lia,” he murmured. He wasn’t dressed yet, not properly, in just his tunic and leathers. Liadrin supposed he’d dumped his chestpiece and boots somewhere in the living room when he’d let himself in, as he was wont to do. “Good morning.”

“Good morning to you,” she replied softly. She’d long ago given up the pretense of irritation at his appearance in her chambers. Once upon a time, when he was the temporary regent, she had seen it as indecent, something to set the servants and the guards gossiping. Lor’themar may not live in the Spire but Liadrin did, and no one needed to know the intimacies of the relationship between the regent and the Blood Matriarch. Once upon a time, when she had first been offered chambers in the Spire and Lor’themar was the Ranger Lord, she would scold him for sneaking into her home, saying it wasn’t proper, creating rumors about the Ranger Lord and the High Priestess. That felt like so long ago. 

“Have I told you,” Lor’themar said, “that you look the most beautiful in the morning?”

Liadrin rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. According to Lor’themar, she always looked her most beautiful no matter what she was doing and no matter the time of day. She laid a hand on his chest and he pulled her to him, and when he kissed her, she felt like she had that very first time, when she was sixteen and nervous and he was not the charming romantic but a teenage boy who had blushed to the roots of his hair.

“Yuck.”

Lor’themar froze, his single eye flying open to slide past Liadrin and landing on the very small, sleepy little girl now standing barefoot in the kitchen. Liadrin, having forgotten about Salandria momentarily, tried to suppress a giggle.

“We’ll need three plates,” she said quietly, reaching for them.

“Who’re you?” Salandria asked Lor’themar.

“A new recruit?” Lor’themar asked Liadrin.

Liadrin shook her head. “Maybe eventually.” Suddenly she was nervous. It didn’t matter what Lor’themar thought. Salandria had been her decision, was her choice, and Lor’themar had no say in the matter. They weren’t even married. 

“Who are you?” Salandria stared at Lor’themar.

“What does that mean?” Lor’themar asked curiously. He helped Liadrin divide his breakfast for two into breakfast for three.

Perhaps she should have talked to Lor’themar first. They  _ had _ talked about children. But Liadrin’s duties as Blood Matriarch had made pregnancy an impossibility and Lor’themar’s fears had always loomed over any discussion they’d started. And children meant marriage and living together and they’d long ago learned that it was far easier to stay independent, though romantically devoted. 

“Who are  _ you _ ?!” Salandria demanded, and Liadrin shot her a stern look, glad for the momentary distraction. 

“Do not speak to your elders in such fashion, Salandria,” she reprimanded, “and do not interrupt when others are speaking.” Salandria pouted. “None of that either.Take this plate and go sit down. Would you like juice?”

“Yes,” Salandria mumbled. She took the proffered plate and sat quietly at the kitchen table, though her attitude improved noticeably as she tasted Lor’themar’s cooking. 

“Lia.” The look in Lor’themar’s eye was wary. Perhaps this was the best way, Liadrin rationalized. Push him into the water, don’t wait for him to wade in.

“She’s mine,” Liadrin told him. “I adopted her in Shattrath.”

“You went to Shattrath… to adopt a child?” Liadrin watched his brain work, running a thousand streams of thought at once. She didn’t answer, knowing as well as he did that was not why she’d gone. 

“Her name is Salandria.” She set her jaw. 

Lor’themar rubbed his eyes. Or rather, his eye and the patch that covered his empty eye socket. He pinched the bridge of his nose and inhaled. Exhaled. Liadrin let him. She poured Salandria a glass of juice (“Who’s he?” “A friend of mine.”) and came back, leaning against the wall.

“Lia.” Lor’themar’s voice was deep and even. He had the remarkable ability to stay calm no matter his true feelings. It was one of the things that made him a good leader. “We’ve talked about this.”

“I know.”

“I don’t… I’m  _ not _ having a Theron dynasty.”

“Her name isn’t Theron,” Liadrin said gently. “Salandria was released into my sole custody.”

Lor’themar snorted. “Lia. You can’t possibly think－”

Liadrin put a hand on his arm. “You don’t have to be her father,” she murmured. “You’ve no obligation. But I want to be her mother.”

A vein stood out by Lor’themar’s ruined eye. The muscles in his neck were tense. 

“You won’t be like him,” she assured him. “I know you won’t.” She remembered bruises and scars that, for him, would never fade, no matter how much time was put between the boy of fourteen and the Regent Lord of Quel’Thalas. “You’re a  _ good _ man.”

Lor’themar stood tense, eye closed. After a moment, he removed Liadrin’s hand and brought it to his lips, pressing them to each one of her knuckles. “Can I think about it?” he whispered.

“Of course.” Liadrin smiled softly at him. “You don’t need my permission. Take as long as you need.”

Lor’themar nodded into her knuckles and after a moment kissed her forehead. He then did the most surprising thing of all, and sat down to breakfast with Salandria. His food was surely cold (Liadrin’s was, once she got over her shock and joined them) but he ate with great gusto, asking Salandria many questions and listening intently as she answered them at length and returned with questions of her own. 

“Why you wear that?” She pointed to his patch.

Lor’themar was long practiced with this. Children had asked him for many years. “I hurt my eye.”

“Healer make you wear it?”

“It gets itchy if I don’t.” 

“You coming with us today?”

“Where are you going?”

“Kelldanna.”

“Quel’Danas,” Liadrin corrected.

“What are you doing on Kelldanna?” Lor’themar asked, amused.

“Um.” Salandria thought for a moment. “See the Well.”

“That’s a very important trip,” Lor’themar said. 

“Like going to Auchidoun?”

Lor’themar didn’t know what an Auchidoun was. Neither, for that matter, did Liadrin.

“Erm. I suppose so.”

“Whoa.” Salandria’s eyes went wide. After a moment she said, “You coming with?”

Lor’themar pouted. “I have to go to work.”

“What you do?”

“I work for the government.”

Salandria wrinkled her nose. “Sounds boring.”

“It is,” Lor’themar agreed. “I’d rather go to Kelldanna.”

“You’re going to work,” Liadrin said sharply.

“Can he come with?” Salandria asked.

“He has work.”

“But he doesn’t wanna go.”

“Yeah, I don’t wanna go,” Lor’themar protested.

Liadrin huffed. “I’ll ask Rommath to bring you in.”

“...I’ll go.”

Salandria was confused. “What’s a Rommath?”

* * *

Liadrin had not been wrong. The spark she had seen in the ruined city exploded upon contact with the Sunwell. For the rest of the week, she and Salandria “played orcs and draenei,” as Salandria called it, with wooden training swords, and Liadrin taught the girl to call the Light. 

Salandria took well to Silvermoon life. She was still mesmerized by the finery, but in only a few weeks her accent was beginning to fade. Liadrin took the girl with her to the training yard and Salandria sat, watching paladins spar. She took Salandria to the chapel, as Vandellor had taken her all those years ago, and watched the Light bloom between Salandria’s hands as she prayed. 

Halduron loved her. Rommath tolerated her (which Liadrin thought was as good an outcome as she could have hoped for from the Grand Magister). And Lor’themar, skittish, careful Lor’themar, began to spend more time with them. Salandria called him Uncle Lor’themar, and if she suspected her new mother and her new uncle were more than friends (as she probably did), she never said, and she wisely never mentioned anything within the Spire.

“You can leave her with me.”

It was late, and they were having a “sleepover at Uncle Lor’themar’s”. Salandria had been put to bed in Lor’themar’s spare room, which was slowly accumulating more of her things, and he and Liadrin were laying in bed, her head on his chest. She had been reading to him as she sometimes did (to ease the strain on his eye), but had broken off, and with little prodding, Lor’themar had deduced that the problem was Salandria.

Liadrin propped herself up on one elbow. “What?”

“Salandria. When you go to the Ghostlands, you can leave her with me.” Lor’themar ran his hand down her back and up again, comforting if not for the utter hawkstrider shit he was saying.

“Lor’the… I’ll be gone at least two weeks.” Liadrin shifted to be able to look at him better. “To confer with the Farstriders and ride back. If we take Deatholme early, it could be longer.”

“I know.” 

“That’s a long time, Lor’themar.”

“I know.” Lor’themar smiled at her. “I don’t want you to worry about her. And I don’t want her to be scared with someone else. She knows me. She knows my home.”

Liadrin watched him carefully. “You’ve never been alone with her that long.” Indeed, Lor’themar in the beginning would not agree to be around Salandria at all without Liadrin. He had once come over in the middle of the night when Liadrin had had to leave for an emergency, but Salandria had been asleep for that and Liadrin had been back after breakfast. Another time he had brought her to the Spire and charged his assistant with her care for the day when Liadrin had business outside the city. But two weeks?

“By the Sunwell, I’m terrified,” he admitted readily. “But she’s your daughter and I love you.” He toyed with a strand of her hair. “Because she’s your daughter I love her. But… I think… it’s okay now?”

Liadrin held her breath. She had told herself, the entire seven weeks that Salandria had been here, that what Lor’themar thought did not matter, that Salandria was her daughter and not his and he didn’t have to be Salandria’s father. She knew that was a lie. Every day, every time she saw the two together, she hoped. Salandria loved him. (“When you getting married?” “Is Uncle Lor’themar coming with?” “I drew this for Uncle Lor’themar!”)

“I don’t love her just because she’s your daughter,” he clarified. “I still do not want her to have my name” (and though she bit her lip the grin started all the same) “but I think I could be her father. I’d like to try, anyway, while you’re away.” 

Liadrin had never considered herself  _ emotional _ . Her guilty pleasure romance novels described women who threw themselves at men in their happiness, women who were moved to tears by words, and that had never been her. Halduron and Velonara, before the Scourge, had been the sort of couple who gave in to their emotions, who let themselves be swept along by the powerful current, and that was not her either, was not her relationship with Lor’themar. Theirs was an old love, ancient as time itself. A love spoken in shared glances, subtle touches, soft kisses. But every so often, Liadrin found herself full to bursting with emotion, and it was often Lor’themar who inspired it. 

She kissed him. On his lips, on his cheeks. At the corner of his mouth where that cocky smirk she hated and loved rested. On both his good eye and the ruined, and the lobe of each ear. She had known he could do it. She had known he was nothing like his father, had known since he’d stumbled upon the Sanctum of the Moon at fourrteen years old, ribs bruised and broken. 

He laughed. His confession had left him shaky; her kisses had built him back up. “You haven’t left yet. It may be a disaster.”

“It won’t be,” she murmured. 

* * *

Lor’themar’s spare room had been transformed into a girl’s bedroom. Salandria’s drawings littered the living room floor. A new one had been hung on the wall. His home was cleaner than Liadrin had ever seen it, and she felt almost guilty when she stepped inside. She’d come straight here from the Ghostlands, dusty from the ride and dirty from the Scourge lingering the Dead Scar. She wanted to see Salandria and Lor’themar, she told herself, and then she would bathe. 

“Mother!” Salandria was on her in an instant. It had only been two months (nine weeks now, Liadrin corrected), but hearing that word made Liadrin melt a little every time. She wished she had called Vandellor  _ Father _ , even once, for all the man had done for her. She wondered if he would have melted inside too.

She laughed. “Hello, sweet girl.” She kissed the top of Salandria’s head and smoothed back her hair. “I missed you.”

“Me too!” Salandria’s eyes were huge green circles. “Did you fight all the bad things?”

“I made a plan to fight the bad things.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“Hey now. She worked very hard on that plan.” Behind her, Lor’themar came to her defense. Salandria wrinkled her nose. 

Liadrin hefted Salandria up on her hip. “Did you have fun?” she asked.

“Yes! We did my room!” Salandria pointed, though Lor’themar lived in a two floor apartment and the bedroom in question was not visible. “We went hawkstrider riding! My hawkstrider was pink! Uncle Halduron did orcs and draenei with me! He didn’t want to be the draenei but I made him,” she finished smugly.

“That is quite a lot,” Liadrin said. To Lor’themar she said, “Any problems?”

Lor’themar looked hesitant. “She had a tantrum… Or three.”

“Screamed real loud,” Salandria said proudly.

“That’s not something to boast about,” Liadrin chided. She looked again at Lor’themar. “What did you do?”

“I talked to her. I just, uh… tried to see from her perspective what was upsetting her.” He looked unsure. Liadrin did not do that. He had seen Liadrin discipline Salandria before, firmly but fairly, and it was not like that.

Liadrin smiled at him. “See? I told you you’d be fine.” Lor’themar breathed a sigh of relief.

* * *

Liadrin had trained new recruits many times, but never one so young and small as Salandria. She was light and delicate, but firm, and was not afraid to show the little girl that one wrong move would result in a smack from the wooden training sword. She rarely hit hard, but one day she would, and she did not want her daughter growing up in such a depraved world thinking she could never be touched.

“Your guard, Salandria,” she said sternly. “Your entire left side is open.” She tapped the girl’s stomach to prove it. 

“You want to stand like this.” She showed Salandria again. “With your sword arm here, and your shield arm here.” She helped straighten the girl’s arms. “See how much better protected you are?”

“No one will get through that defense!” Lor’themar cheered from the edge of the training yard. He was taking long, loping strides, and he hadn’t changed from his office attire, the crisp robes befitting a ruler looking dreadfully out of place in a sparring ring.

“Like a turtle!” Salandria shrieked.

“Like a turtle,” Lor’themar agreed.

“A... a spike turtle!”

Liadrin watched with mild amusement. “A spiky turtle,” she affirmed. To Lor’themar, she turned and teased, “You can’t train in that outfit.”

“Oh, I can make an attempt,” Lor’themar laughed. He stepped into position though he had no sword, and caught Salandria’s sword as it whacked him in the arm. 

“I cut your arm! I cut your arm!” Salandria was not bothered that Lor’themar had stolen her sword. “You have no arm now!”

“I’ve lost an eye  _ and _ an arm?”

“Quite the catch,” Liadrin teased.

“Not a eye!” Salandria protested. “I didn’t do that!”

“I have two eyes then?” Lor’themar grinned.

“Yes!”

“Hear that, Lia? I can wink at you again.” He blinked his single eye at her. “Did you see?”

Liadrin rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “What can we do for you, Lor’themar?” She spoke a little louder, trying to remind everyone, herself included, that while the yard was empty now, it may not be for long. 

“Yes!” Salandria pulled herself into a soldier’s salute so still Liadrin’s military heart swelled. “What can we do for  _ you _ ?”

“Actually…” Lor’themar knelt in front of the little girl, and gently set her training sword on the ground. “I wanted to ask you something, Salandria.”

Liadrin’s breath caught. She and Lor’themar had talked about it. She had known it was coming. When Lor’themar had told her, Liadrin had been as overjoyed as the day the Sunwell had been given back to them. Her face had been wet and Lor’themar’s face had been wet and she felt like a fool in love all over again. But now?  _ Here? _

Salandria was confused. People didn’t ask  _ her _ questions in the training area, they asked her mother. “Me?”

Lor’themar grinned. “Yes, you.”

Salandria considered this. She crossed her arms. “What you want?”

“Well.” Lor’themar fidgeted, and it was cute. He wasn’t a fidgeter. “What would you say... if... I asked, to be your father?”

It had never been Lor’themar’s decision, Liadrin knew. She had told herself that in Shattrath, and when tucking Salandria into bed, and when shopping in the Bazaar. He needed to  _ want _ to, of course, but it had never been up to him. In the end, it had always been Salandria’s decision.

Salandria stared at him. Lor’themar stared back. 

“Aren’t you already?” she asked. 

Now Lor’themar was staring at Salandria, and Liadrin at the both of them. She would  _ not _ cry, she told herself, but on the inside she melted. Those were, quite possibly, the most amazing three words she had ever heard.

Lor’themar pulled Salandria close, eye squeezed shut. “Yes,” he breathed. He made a noise that was somewhat a choked sob and somewhat a choked laugh and stroked Salandria’s hair. “I was just making sure you knew.”

Salandria had wrapped her arms around Lor’themar’s neck, her face buried in his cornsilk mane. Her shoulders shook, Liadrin saw, and she dropped beside them and laid a hand on her daughter’s back. She kissed her daughter, and kissed Lor’themar, and Lor’themar kissed his daughter, and Salandria kissed them both; and somewhere, Liadrin thought, perhaps Vandellor was jumping for joy, in whatever sort of afterlife there was; and perhaps somewhere else, her parents were doing the same. Their little girl finally had a family of her own.

* * *

Lor’themar Theron had kissed her when she was sixteen years old. At thirty she’d held an idealized version of the rest of their lives. She had joined the priesthood and he the Farstriders. Their chosen paths often kept them separated for long months, but Liadrin had been true and so too had Lor’themar. Vandellor used to tease her endlessly, she remembered, about her “Farstrider phase,” but Lor’themar had been no phase. When Liadrin was with him, curled in his arms, the world felt like the safe place it had been in her childhood. Before the fires. Before the beating of Amani war drums. Before her parents had died. With Lor’themar, the nightmares never came.

She had wanted a cozy house on the banks of the Elrendar River, close to Farstrider Enclave for him and far from the Amani for her. They had so many dreams, when they were young and innocent. Unmarked. Until Zul’jin. Until the Scourge.

The Scourge had destroyed their dreams, as it had for so many others. Gone was their cozy house. Gone was her foster father. Gone was the Light. But Lor’themar had remained. In the midst of it all, Lor’themar had remained tall and strong, her lighthouse in that endless storm, and when she’d finally collapsed, soulbroken and weary, it had been Lor’themar who’d found a way to heal her. 

They were older now. No longer blessed with the innocence and ignorance of youth, they were battle hardened and scarred. They could take no chances, no risks. They wanted no marriage, and one household was absurd. They were set in their ways. There could be no Theron dynasty, Lor’themar didn’t want that. He couldn’t, wouldn’t risk their safety to his selfishness, expose his heart to his political enemies.

But here, with Salandria, all of that melted away. With Salandria, they were no longer the ruler of a country and its military tactician. With Salandria, in Liadrian’s apartment in the Spire or Lor’themar’s home across the city, they were simply Mother and Father. They were content, in their own bubble, to play orcs and draenei, to watch baby dragonhawks hatch, to teach Salandria the old songs and games that they themselves had learned as children. 

Piled on the couch, with Salandria between them, Liadrin read to their daughter from an old, old book of children’s stories of the history of the world, Lor’themar acting out the parts he deemed necessary － and they were all necessary, according to him － and Salandria listening in wonder to stories of dragons and sorcerors and demons and night elves. Liadrin had thought, with Lor’themar, that this was something she would never have, and that had always been fine. But now, watching Lor’themar roar like a dragon and Salandria shriek, she knew better. She had always wanted this. 

She had always wanted a family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can write cute things. I just... often write angst. ^_^;;
> 
> The idea for this popped in my head just as the ideas for my other fics have. I actually finished this in the dead of night right after I'd posted an update for my Rommath fic "Enough." Chapter 2 will be Salandria's point of view, and Chapter 3 will be Lor'themar's.
> 
> The quick Halduron/Velonara reference comes from my first story in the Tales From Silvermoon series "Little Lynx."


	2. Salandria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Salandria meets a pretty lady with sun-colored eyes, and a man with only one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone who has been waiting for this chapter, sorry for the delay! I've been working on "Enough" and sleeping through the hot parts of the day. X_X

Salandria knew that older people always lied. Sometimes it was a little lie, like when Matron Mercy said there were new clothes but the clothes were poked full of holes or that there was enough food for two servings. Sometimes it was a comforting lie, like when she watched the new refugees stream into the city, hugging each other and saying it was okay now even though it wasn’t. Sometimes it was a big lie, the kind older people tell little girls they want to adopt but don’t. Salandria thought those lies hurt the most.

But she knew that older people lied and that was just a part of being old, so she tried her best not to think about it when she asked Matron Mercy to patch her skirt, or when her tummy growled, and she especially tried not to think about it when the people came to the orphanage claiming to want children. Sometimes they came back and one of her friends would leave, off to a new home with new parents. More often, they didn’t, and she and her friends would cry and cry. 

She didn’t know why Matron Mercy was calling her this time. She hadn’t hit Gamond  _ that _ hard and besides, he’d stolen Dornaa’s doll! She wandered over to Matron Mercy and the elf lady cautiously, ready to defend herself. If the lady was a Scryer, she’d understand. The Scryers always took the elf children’s sides. But the protests died in her mouth as she looked at the visitor.

“Your eyes are  _ sun-colored! _ ” she gasped, eyes wide. She’d never seen such color eyes before. Maybe they were magic.

“So they are.” The lady spoke Common with a funny accent, but it was warm and inviting like a hug when you’re sad. She smiled and that was warm too and Salandria found herself beaming back.

“They’re  _ so _ pretty!”

“Thank you.” The lady, still smiling, told Salandria that her name was  _ Liadrin _ ( _ Lee-ah-drin _ . Salandria played with it again and again, letting her tongue roll around the syllables. What a beautiful name!) and that she came from far away. 

“How would you like to live with me?” Liadrin asked, and Salandria gaped.

“Truly?”

“I would love to have you,” Liadrin promised, and Salandria, not quite trusting her ears, knowing she shouldn’t believe it, looked over at Matron Mercy, confused. 

Matron Mercy nodded. “The Lady Liadrin would like to adopt you,” Matron Mercy told her, smiling brightly. Salandria’s heart soared.

“Yes! Yesyesyesyesyes! Iwannalivewithyou!”

She danced in place, and danced around, and stamped her feet and danced. Matron Mercy and Liadrin laughed.

“We’ll leave tomorrow,” Liadrin said over her noise, and Salandria froze.

“T-tomorrow?” Her heart dropped to her stomach.  _ Oh _ . Another one of  _ those _ older people. 

Liadrin nodded. “I’ll collect you for breakfast,” she said. Salandria’s gaze fell to the floor. 

“Okay…” There would be no breakfast. At least not with Liadrin. There never was. Oh well… She’d go back to her friends, and not think about this, and try very hard not to be upset about the lady with the sun-colored eyes.

“Try and think about what you want for breakfast,” Liadrin said gently. “We’ll be taking a portal, so nothing heavy, okay?”

Salandria took Matron Mercy’s hand and nodded at her shoes. She could see where the sole had started to separate from the rest of the shoe. Liadrin patted her hair and told her goodbye, and when Dornaa asked if she’d gotten in trouble, Salandria shook her head and would not elaborate. 

Older people always lied, she knew. She didn’t know why they always lied to her, but she knew they always lied.

* * *

“Salandria, Salandria!” Hch’uu was shouting, running as fast as her feet could take her. Salandria looked over her shoulder, concerned. If Gamond was picking on her again, Salandria was going to thump the orc so hard he turned  _ red _ . All the orcs were afraid of turning red.

“What’s wrong? Are those orc boys－”

“She came back!” Hch’uu’s orange eyes were huge and her mouth was agape. She pointed a purple finger back the way she’d come. “The elf lady!”

Salandria’s mouth felt dry. Dornaa, on her stomach on the floor, her coloring abandoned, looked up, confused. “What?”

“Salandria’s elf lady came back!” Hch’uu insisted. 

“Th-they never come back,” Salandria protested shakily. She’d tried so hard not to cry yesterday, when Liadrin had walked away. Dornaa had patted her back and Hch’uu had given her a pretty flower and she had  _ not _ cried in her bed after lights out. 

“Come see!” The sporeling grabbed Salandria by the arm and all but dragged her from the room, and Dornaa scrambled quickly after them, hooves clopping on the stone floor. And there, sitting with Matron Mercy at one of the outdoor tables, was the lady from yesterday. She had sun-colored eyes and hair the color of the chocolates the humans would donate. 

_ She came back. _

Dornaa gasped, her breath hot in Salandria’s ear. “Salandria! It’s the same lady!”

“I told you,” Hch’uu said smugly.

_ She came back for me. _

“Salandria!” Matron Mercy had seen them lurking. She beckoned. Salandria froze.

“ _ Go! _ ” Hch’uu and Dornaa shoved her when she didn’t move. "Go!” Dornaa said again.

“Don’t let her get away!” Hch’uu whispered.

And Salandria found herself in front of the Lady Liadrin and Matron Mercy once more, in awe and shock and －  _ I can’t believe she came back. _

“I have a gift for you, Salandria,” Liadrin said, holding out a fancy bag. Salandria didn’t think she should touch it. It must be worth more than… well, Salandria was six and didn’t know how much things cost, but she’d never seen anything so fancy before, all gold and red. 

“Go ahead, Salandria,” Matron Mercy urged. “You can open it.”

Carefully and with shaking fingers, Salandria pulled open the bag and found a whole treasure trove inside. There was paper － so much good drawing paper! And it was wrapped around the most beautiful set of clothes she’d ever seen. They were new, really new, with no holes or anything, and came with boots that had all the laces. Down at the very bottom was a backpack, and this was new too, the straps stiff and the fabric clean. Salandria gasped.

“Thank you! Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!”

Liadrin laughed warmly. “You’re welcome. I thought you’d like to wear something new to your new home.”

She couldn’t wait to show Dornaa and Hch’uu.

“Go and pack. Take as much time as you need.”

“Thank you, thank you!” Salandria put everything back in the fancy bag and, clutching it tightly to her chest, sprinted back as fast as she could to her friends.

“Well?” Dornaa demanded. Salandria beamed.

“I’m getting adopted!” Salandria shrieked.

“By the Light!” Dornaa shrieked, at the same as Hch’uu screamed, “Yay Salandria!” They both threw their arms around her, so quickly and with so much force that they three of them went tumbling to the floor in a pile of limbs and skirts and tears, but they were happy tears.

_ She came back for me. She wants me. _

* * *

The Lady Liadrin kept her every promise. She bought Salandria breakfast, and there was indeed a portal. Salandria had never been through a portal before. It made her head dizzy in an ugly way and Liadrin sat with her and sent a message through a runner until she felt better. She told Salandria that runners were people who took messages to other people and Salandria thought she’d like to be a runner. She was very fast.

Liadrin told her that the city they were in now, the city where they would live, was called Silvermoon.  _ Silvermoon _ . She’d heard Mister Voren’thal and his Scryers talk about Silvermoon but it had always sounded like such a faraway, mystical place. Liadrin held her hand and they walked through it and Salandria, craning her neck to see  _ absolutely everything _ , thought that they’d been right. Silvermoon was like nothing she’d ever seen. Pure white like Auchidon and red and gold, and nothing was cracked or broken or falling down. And everyone, it seemed, was an elf. Salandria couldn’t help it; she stared.

“Is everyone elfs?” she asked Liadrin, and this made her smile like she was trying to not to laugh.

“Yes, sweetheart,” she said softly. “There aren’t many cities like Shattrath. The draenei have their own city, and humans have their own, and we have Silvermoon.”

Salandria thought about it. “I wanna see the draenei city,” she declared. “A city with  _ all _ draenei? No arakkoa or ethereals or goblins or nothing? That’s weird.”

“I suppose it does seem odd,” Liadrin agreed, “if you’ve grown up in a city with all that.” 

“What’s the draenei city called? Where is it? Can we go there?”

Liadrin smoothed back her hair. “It’s called the Exodar, and it’s very far away.”

“We need a portal?”

“Probably.”

“We should go!” Salandria couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. She’d love to tell Dornaa she’d been to a city of all draenei.

Liadrin gave her a silly smile. “Maybe someday.” 

They were passing guards now. Salandria knew they were guards because they wore armor, but these guards wore long swords strapped to their sides, and held shields that reached the sky.

“Wow!” she gasped, standing before one. “Look how tall!” She waved at the guard, who did not look at her. “‘Scuse me! Hey! Why your shield so big?”

Liadrin laughed. She bent down and whispered, “These are Royal Silvermoon Guards. They’re not allowed to talk to you.”

“Why not?” Salandria huffed.

“They have to stand at attention － that’s standing very straight, see? － and be prepared for danger.”

“Danger?”

“Oh yes,” Liadrin said seriously. “Like great big monsters who swoop in and steal little girls!” She descended then and scooped Salandria off her feet, and Salandria shrieked, and Liadrin gave her a twirl and roared.

“Help!” Salandria laughed. “I’m stealed!”

Liadrin grinned and set her back down, gold eyes twinkling. “I  _ stole _ you,” she corrected. “How about some lunch for my stolen little girl?”

“Yes!” All that walking had made her hungry. 

As they walked into what Liadrin called “the Spire,” one of the Silvermoon guards’ lips quirked.

* * *

Salandria woke to the sound of voices. It took her a moment to remember where she was. 

She took pride in the fact that she didn’t panic easily. Waking up in an unfamiliar room did not bother her as much as it probably should have. (She did not think last night counted, when she crawled into Liadrin’s bed sniffling because it was too quiet in her new big bed in her new big room.) She looked around. Folded neatly on the divan was a tunic and trousers, and in the corner was a large wardrobe. A basin lay on a sturdy table in the opposite corner with a water pitcher. Holy relics and sprigs of flowers decorated the room. This was not the orphanage in Shattrath.

Oh! No, no! She wasn’t in Shattrath anymore. Yesterday she had been adopted by a woman named Liadrin, and Liadrin had whisked her away to a magical place called Silvermoon. A large window lay on one wall, and Salandria climbed out of bed just to check. Just to be sure.

There! Those were not Shattrath’s trees! That was not Shattrath outside! Salandria felt a wide grin break out over her face as she gazed out over the waking city, and it was only her grumbling stomach that tore her away from the oranges and reds and yellows of her new home.

Whatever Liadrin was cooking smelled really good, Salandria decided. She’d learned last night that Silvermoon and Shattrath had wildly different foods, but they weren’t really that bad. She hoped breakfast was as good as dinner had been.

“Have I told you that you look most beautiful in the morning?”

Salandria had reached the kitchen, and was very confused. Liadrin was there, and there was food, and there was also a man with long blonde hair. There hadn’t been a man here when they’d gone to bed. 

And most importantly, he was kissing Liadrin over their breakfast. Gross.

“Yuck,” Salandria said loudly.

They broke apart, the man staring at her. Liadrin reached for the cabinet behind him, like she hadn’t just been  _ kissing _ a  _ boy _ . (Ew.) “We’ll need three plates.”

“Who’re you?” Salandria demanded. 

He ignored her. “New recruit?” he asked Liadrin.

“Maybe eventually.” She began putting food on the third plate.

“Who’re you?” Salandria asked again, but it was like she wasn’t even there.

“What does that mean?” The man seemed entirely focused on Liadrin and Salandria could go kick rocks for all he cared. 

“Who are  _ you?! _ ” she said loudly, stomping her foot. That got his attention, and Liadrin’s too.

“Do not speak to your elders like that, Salandria,” she scolded. “And no pouting. Come take this plate.” Salandria shuffled over and took the plate, staring at its contents angrily. “Do you want  juice?” 

“Yes,” she mumbled, and sat down at the table when she was told. She didn’t understand why she was in trouble for such a simple question. She always had to say her name when asked. Why didn’t this guy?

She wasn’t trying to listen (except she really was), and it wasn’t until she’d started eating that Liadrin and the man started talking again. They seemed to be arguing. It took Salandria a moment to realize that they were arguing about  _ her _ .

“We’ve talked about this,” the man was saying. “I’m  _ not _ having a Theron dynasty.” (Salandria didn’t know what a “dynasty” was.)

“Her name isn’t Theron,” Liadrin insisted. “She’s mine. She was released into my custody.”

Salandria sank into her chair, trying to make herself small. 

Liadrin’s friend snorted. “Lia. You can’t possibly think－”

“You don’t have to be her father.”

Salandria drank her juice, trying to drown out the whispered conversation by gulping loudly.  _ What if they send me back to the orphanage? _

“Can I think about it?” he was saying.

“Of course. Take as long as you need.”

Suddenly there was the sound of a chair scraping on the floor, and when Salandria looked up, Liadrin’s friend had sat down at the table, a plate in hand. “Good morning,” he said, and smiled.

“Good morning,” she said quietly.

“Liadrin said your name is Salandria,” he said kindly. “That’s very pretty.” 

Salandria said nothing, unsure of how to react. 

“My name is Lor’themar.” He shoveled a great helping of food in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “I wouldn’t have surprised you if I’d known you were here. I hope you weren’t scared.”

Salandria frowned. “I wasn’t scared.”

Lor’themar grinned. “No? That’s good then.” Another mouthful of food. And he didn’t talk with his mouth full like some boys did, or chew with his mouth open. That was gross. “How are you finding Silvermoon, Salandria?”

“It’s okay.” She hesitated. “It’s really big. Not like Shattrath. And there’s lots of elfs.”

Lor’themar laughed at that, long and loud. “Yes, there are a lot of elves here,” he agreed. He had a nice laugh, Salandria decided. 

When Liadrin joined them, the curiosity had built up too much to be ignored. Pointing to the patch that covered one eye, Salandria said, “Why you wear that?” It was black and leathery and wrapped around his head. It looked uncomfortable.

Lor’themar chewed on a piece of fruit fried with sugar. “I hurt my eye,” he told her. “A long time ago.”

She frowned. “Healer make you wear it?” 

Lor’themar made a face. “It itches if I don’t,” he confided. Salandria nodded seriously. Itchy eyes were the  _ worst _ .

“You coming with today?”

“Where are you off to?”

Salandria tried to recall the name Liadrin had told her. “Kelldanna.”

“Quel’Danas,” Liadrin corrected. She had been watching her and Lor’themar quietly.

“That’s a very important trip,” Lor’themar said, impressed. He scratched just under the band of his eyepatch and Salandria made a face.  _ Itchy eyes. _

“Like Auchidon?” Auchidon was the only important place she knew. Matron Mercy said it was a holy place.

“Erm. I suppose so.”

Salandria’s eyes widened. “Whoa.”

After he had left (Liadrin had insisted he had to go to work, even though he didn’t want to), Salandria said, “Is he your husband?”

Liadrin laughed softly, ushering her into her room (her own room!). “No, he isn’t.”

“He kissed you.”

“He did.”

“You like him?”

Liadrin pulled a brush gently through her sleep tangled hair. “Very much.” Salandria frowned, confused. Older people didn’t make sense.

* * *

Salandria had begun to call Liadrin “Mother” after a few weeks. She had never known her  _ real _ mother, she insisted, only Matron Mercy. Liadrin felt like the only mother she’d ever had. She didn’t know what to call Lor’themar. After some thinking, she decided she should probably call him Uncle Lor’themar. She didn’t think she should tell anyone that sometimes she saw her mother and Uncle Lor’themar kissing when they thought she’d gone to bed. 

With Uncle Lor’themar came Uncle Halduron (who Salandria  _ loved _ ) and Uncle Rommath (who asked several times not to be called that) and Aunt Neeluu, but Aunt Neeluu lived on  _ Quel’Danas _ and was far away. Salandria also met Mister Astalor, who worked with her mother, and he was very nice and snuck her sweets. (He was her favorite if anybody asked, but only Uncle Halduron asked and she had to tell Uncle Halduron that  _ he _ was her favorite or he would pout.)

Her mother took her to the chapel and taught her about the Light, which blazed at her fingertips as she prayed. Salandria shrieked the first time this happened, and her mother nearly cried, and pulled Salandria into her lap and called her a good girl. She went to the training yard and watched her mother do something called “drills” with “paladins” and “blood knights,” and sometimes she would play orcs and draenei with her mother there when she was finished. And sometimes when her mother was very busy, she would ask Uncle Lor’themar to watch her, and Uncle Lor’themar would set her up in his office with the best drawing paper she’d ever used, and she tried really hard to stay extra quiet while he sat at his great big desk and said he was working but really wasn’t.

“What are you drawing today, Salandria?”

Salandria didn’t look up; she knew Lor’themar would be kneeling close by and she just handed off her last drawing. “Making a story,” she told him.

“A story, huh?” Lor’themar sat down properly beside her and studied the drawing she handed him. “What’s this story about?”

“It’s a surprise for Mother,” Salandria warned. She shot him a harsh look out of the corner of her eye. He laughed.

“I won’t tell,” he promised.

Salandria glared at him a moment longer, and he laughed again and swore, “I won’t!” before she relented.

“It’s about a princess from a country from really far away,” she started. “Like so far away you need  _ two _ portals to get there.”

Lor’themar whistled. “That’s very far.”

“And the princess is all alone.” She flipped over her stack of finished drawings to show him. Her princess had yellow hair and green eyes and may have been Salandria herself. “She doesn’t have a mother and father.”

“Oh no!” Lor’themar gasped. “What’s this princess going to do?”

“She’s going on a adventure,” Salandria said firmly. “See? She fights a dragon. And then a Old God. And then a  _ troll _ .” She had taken the villains from a book of children’s stories, but Uncle Lor’themar and Uncle Halduron had convinced her that trolls were the worst villains of all.

“Not a troll!”

“Didn’t finish yet,” Salandria admitted. “The troll has the princess’s mother and father! And they live happily ever after.” She beamed.

“Wonderful story, Salandria!” Lor’themar praised. He kissed the top of her head. “Your mother will love it.” Salandria hoped so, because － lacking a father of her own － she was going to draw Lor’themar as the princess’s father. He was basically her father anyway. She just hoped it didn’t upset her mother. (She didn’t think she should ask Lor’themar about it.)

“I know,” she said proudly. 

“And you’re so humble too,” he said, amused.

“What’s humble?” 

He laughed. 

* * *

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” 

“We’ll be fine, Lia,” Lor’themar said. “Go on.”

Liadrin dropped to her knees and looked Salandria in the eyes. “You must be  _ very good _ for Lor’themar,” she said sternly. “I will be home in a fortnight.”

Salandria nodded. She was nervous. She had never been away from her mother for so long. 

“I  _ will _ come back,” Liadrin promised her. “I will  _ always _ come back to you, Salandria.” She held her arms out and Salandria fell into them, hugging her tight. (She was afraid, the tiniest bit, that Liadrin was leaving. Like  _ leaving _ leaving. As always, her mother knew what she was thinking and banished the thought from her mind.)

“Okay,” Salandria whispered. 

“Lor’themar will be with you the entire time.”

“Okay.”

Liadrin kissed her hair and hugged her tight, and very reluctantly let her go, and Salandria tried her best to be very brave. She was six years old and a big girl. 

“Thank you,” Liadrin said to Lor’themar, and he nodded. “It will be fine.” She squeezed his hand and let herself out and suddenly it was just Salandria and Lor’themar.

“Let’s, ah… Let’s get your bedroom set up,” Lor’themar said after a moment. 

“I brought my pillow from home,” Salandria murmured.

“It’s always nice to have something from home,” Lor’themar said agreeably. He hesitated and then held out his hand. “Let’s head upstairs then.”

Salandria had never had an upstairs before. Liadrin’s chambers in the Spire were one floor. Lor’themar lived in a townhome in the city, and she and Liadrin had to walk twenty minutes each way to reach it. Tentatively she took the offered hand. It was large and warm and made her feel safe, and he helped her navigate the staircase with her backpack in his other hand.

Salandria and Liadrin had slept over several times, enough times for Salandria to have left several of her own things in Lor’themar’s home. She always slept in his spare room, surrounded by spare hunting equipment and bundled in with an old woolen blanket. She was not prepared for what he’d done to the place.

“Wow…” 

Behind the door to the spare room lay an entirely different space. Gone were the scattered bits of hunting equipment, old bows, bits of feathers and boots. The wool blanket no longer lay on the bed. The furniture was still simple and plain, and Lor’themar had carefully put away Salandria’s things. A new wardrobe stood along one wall, and in place of the woolen blanket lay a pretty red and gold one. 

“What happened to your stuff?” Salandria exclaimed.

Lor’themar chuckled. “If you were going to stay here, surely I needed to clean up a bit,” he told her. “Just, ah… keep it neat, alright?”

“Yes!” Salandria hugged him and then bounded in, throwing her backpack on the bed and proceeding to create a large mess with its contents. 

* * *

Salandria liked sleeping over at Lor’themar’s. He let her stay up a little later than her mother did (“Don’t tell, she’ll flay me,” he laughed), and knew how to cook all sorts of odd foods that Salandria had no idea  _ were _ foods.

“Didn’t know you could eat roots,” she told him in surprise.

“You can eat most anything,” he said, setting the plate before her, “as long as it’s cooked properly."

During the day, he had  _ work _ and that was really boring. Lor’themar did something really important in the government, and Salandria wasn’t exactly sure what a government was, but her mother had told her they tell people what to do and Lor’themar had told her he didn’t like doing that. Sometimes she colored in his office, or chased the sanctum cats, or sometimes Uncle Halduron was around and would take her outside as he did his job. (Salandria didn’t know what he did at all, but it seemed to involve a lot of playing outside, and she thought that was a much better job that Lor’themar’s.) 

At night, they would play games. All sorts of games. Lor’themar knew so many more than her mother. Once or twice he invited Uncle Halduron, and they played cards. Salandria won. (Salandria  _ always _ won. Boys just weren’t good at cards, she’d decided.) Lor’themar even knew a game called  _ fethesi _ he said used to be played in the palace, but Salandria didn’t know if she believed that part. 

She was, however, very happy when she saw Liadrin step through Lor’themar’s front door, shrieking and diving for her. “Mother! You’re back!”

Liadrin caught her and swung her up high like Lor’themar had the other day, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “Hello, sweet girl!” She cuddled her close, her sun eyes tired and happy. “I missed you.”

“Did you fight all the bad things?” Salandria asked eagerly.

Liadrin looked amused. “I made a decent plan to fight all the bad things.”

Salandria pouted. “That’s not good enough.”

“Hey now,” Lor’themar interjected. He’d appeared from nowhere (Salandria had learned he was good at that), coming up behind her. “Your mother worked hard on that plan.”

“But she didn’t kill nothing.”

“She’s right,” Liadrin conceded. “I did not.” She smoothed back Salandria’s hair. “Did you have fun?”

“Yes!” Salandria chirped. “We did so much! My room! And hawkstriders! Orcs and draenei! Climbing trees!”

Liadrin laughed. 

“We had a lot of fun,” Lor’themar confirmed.

“I told you,” Liadrin said softly.

* * *

“Stand like this, Salandria.” Liadrin showed her the position again. “Your arms should look like this.”

Salandria copied her as best she could. She liked learning with her mother. Twice a week, after the “paladins” and the “blood knights” were done in the training yard, Liadrin would call Salandria down and hand her a wooden sword and they would play orcs and draenei, but advanced.

“No one will get through that defense!”

Salandria turned. Across the yard was Lor’themar, in the fancy clothes he wore for government. When he was closer, she grinned and shouted, “I’m a turtle!”

“You are a turtle!” he agreed.

“A, a spike turtle!”

“A spiky turtle,” Liadrin concurred. To Lor’themar, she said, “You can’t train in that.”

“Oh, I can attempt,” he said, grinning. Salandria couldn’t help herself. She spun on her heel and whacked him hard on the arm.

“Got your arm! Got your arm!” she crowed. “You have no arm now!”

Lor’themar grasped the arm she’d hit. “I’ve lost my eye and my arm?” he gasped.

“Quite a catch,” Liadrin deadpanned.

“No!” Salandria. “Only the arm! You still have a eye!”

“What can we do for you, Lor’themar?” Liadrin said. She had rolled her eyes, but a smile tugged at her lips.

“Actually, I wanted to ask  _ you _ something, Salandria.” Salandria stopped dancing and watched as Lor’themar knelt down, nearly at eye level with her.

“Me?” she asked.

“Mmhmm.”

Salandria considered this. Whenever people asked her mother something, they approached her carefully, like her mother would yell at them. Sometimes she did. Salandria folded her skinny arms across her chest and stared Lor’themar down. “What’chu want?”

The question surprised her.

“What would you say if I asked to be your father?”

Salandria stared at him. He stared back. What kind of question was that?

Salandria may not have had a father in her whole six years, but she’d had a mother for two whole months, and she didn’t think mothers were that different from fathers. A mother was someone who tucked her in at night, and read her stories, and told her when she was bad. A mother told her to eat her bloodberries even though she didn’t like them, and bought her new clothes, and brushed her hair. A mother was someone who gave her kisses and hugs. A mother was someone who loved her. 

And Lor’themar did all those things. He loved her mother, and he loved her. He’d told her so, before her mother came back from her trip. Didn’t that make him her father?

“Aren’t you already?” she asked him.

Lor’themar’s one eye widened, and then he was pulling her to him, hugging her so hard it almost hurt. 

“Yes,” he breathed, his voice wobbly. Salandria buried her face in his hair. “I’m just making sure you know.”

She felt her mother’s hand on her back and realized she’d started crying, great, ugly, snotty crying, but her mother was crying and Lor’themar was crying and they held each other so close it was impossible to tell whose tears were whose.

* * *

Older people made no sense. Salandria had known that for her entire six years and it seemed to be more true as she aged. 

Her mother lived in grand chambers within the Spire, a disciplined soldier and strong. Her father lived twenty minutes away in a nice townhome with two floors, relaxed and gentle. She had no idea why her parents didn’t live together, or why they weren’t married, or why they didn’t talk about their relationship. These were things that just  _ were _ . There were a lot of things like that. It was best to just ignore them, it seemed.

Sometimes Salandria lived at her mother’s, and she and her mother would sleep over at her father’s. Or sometimes her father would sleep over at her mother’s and she would go home the next day with him. She didn’t really question it. It was another thing that just  _ was _ . 

Salandria’s favorite thing that just  _ was _ , however, were early mornings when the three of them were together. She would crawl into bed with her parents, wriggle into the space between, and Mother would sleepily mumble  _ Good morning, sweet girl _ and hold her close, and Father would roll over and pull them both to him, and rumble in his deep voice  _ I love you, my suns _ , and Salandria would close her eyes and huff contentedly. 

She had been alone for her entire six years, walked out on by couple after couple. It was worth it, though, because she finally had a family. She finally had both a father and a mother who loved her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Keep in mind, these are all the same events as seen by three different people, so they're not always the same.
> 
> Neeluu is a character mentioned in every entry in the Tales From Silvermoon series. She is an OC created as the personification of one of Lor'themar's titles, the Warden of the Sunwell. If you're interested to see more of her, she appears most in "Enough".


	3. Lor'themar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lor'themar reacts to Salandria and comes to terms with his past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for mistakes. I've been working on this chapter for literally ten hours straight and I just.. need it.. to be over. D:

“Yuck.”

Lor’themar’s eye flew open, and he froze. When he had woken up this morning, eager to see the light of his life, nothing had prepared him for this. When he had let himself in this morning, dumped his things in Liadrin’s living room and began cooking breakfast, he hadn’t expected this. Lia was suppressing a nervous smile, mumbling about plates, and disentangling herself from his arms, and Lor’themar was left with all his carefully laid morning plans in disarray.

There was a child in Lia’s kitchen.

“Who’re you?” the child asked. She wore a nightgown and was barefoot and her hair was mussed from sleep.

Lor’themar turned to Liadrin. He tried to sound casual. “Is she, ah… a new recruit?” ( _What a stupid question._ ) 

“Maybe eventually.” She didn’t quite meet his eyes as she divided his lovingly-prepared meal onto three plates.

“What does that mean?” He helped, more to keep himself occupied than anything else. Why was there a child in Lia’s kitchen?

“Who are you?” the child said again.

Lia hmmed and deigned not to answer either question. Lor’themar felt uneasy. He had known Liadrin since he was fourteen years old, and not once had she ever lied to him. Theirs was a relationship built on trust and friendship and understanding, and he had thought she’d understood how very deeply he was opposed to children, how afraid he was of－

“Who are _you?!_ ” the child screeched, stamping her foot, catching both their attentions, and he saw something in Liadrin shift. Like watching her instruct, only… _more._

“Do not speak to your elders in such a manner,” she said, her voice firm. “And do not interrupt when others are speaking. Come, take your plate.” The child shuffled over, pouting. “None of that either.” Lor’themar watched her smooth a stray hair from the girl’s forehead. “Go sit down,” she said, her voice softer. “I’ll get you some juice.” 

Lor’themar watched her watch the little girl as she took a place at Lia’s scrubbed wooden table, the look in her eyes gentle, and he knew. The same look he’s seen in Vandellor when the priest looked at Lia, the soft swell of pride and love, so raw and new. And it _terrified_ him. 

“Lia?” he said, hating the shake in his voice.

Liadrin sighed, and she finally, finally met his eye. “She’s mine,” she admitted. “I brought her home from Shattrath.”

Lor’themar felt his heart thud against his ribs. They had talked about this. Light and Sunwell, they had _talked_ about this. When he’d run away and Vandellor had taken him in, they’d talked about this; and every time he felt himself slipping away to his own anger, they had talked about this, and every few centuries they talked some more. He thought she’d _understood._

“Lia,” he tried again, his voice even despite the rattling at his ribcage. “You asked me for permission… to speak to A’dal.”

Lia, his sweet Liadrin, had never been able to match his calm, and when she spoke, her voice shook. “I did speak to him.”

He tried to breathe. “And you… you came home. With a _child?_ ” For a long moment, the only sound was the soft _clink_ as the little girl ate the food he’d made.

“Her name is Salandria,” Liadrin said quietly. And suddenly it was worse, because the child had a _name._ As if a name made her more real than the fact that she sat less than ten feet from them, no doubt hanging onto their every word. He rubbed at his good eye and empty socket, and took several deep breaths. 

“ _Lia._ ” Her name sounded strangled to his ears, and he winced. Tried again. “Lia.” Much better. “We’ve talked about this.”

Liadrin, leaning against the wall, was watching him cautiously. “I know.” Her voice was gentle, the Lia he knew.

“I can’t… I don’t…” He groped for the right words, and she was patient. “I’m _not_ having a Theron dynasty,” he managed finally.

“Her name isn’t Theron,” she tried to assure him. “She was released to me.”

He snorted. It sounded ugly, and he regretted it immediately. “You can’t possibly think－”

She placed a hand on his arm, a soft touch, and it quieted him. She’d always had that effect on him. “You don’t have to be her father,” she murmured. “But I want to be her mother.” Her eyes slid to the little girl all alone at her big kitchen table. “She needs me, Lor’themar.”

(Lor’themar didn’t know what child _needed_ a parent. To him, parents were screaming and beating, dark ugly bruises, and scars that never faded. Parents were lies.)

He felt her hand squeeze his arm. “You wouldn’t be like him,” she said, her thumb tracing soft circles against his skin. “I know you wouldn’t. You’re a _good_ man.”

Lor’themar tensed, unbidden images of his father rushing to his mind. His father had been such a short part of his life and had scarred him so badly. It horrified him to think he carried that man’s blood in his veins, terrified him to think he could possibly be the same.

He had never wanted children. Had been frightened to even entertain the possibility of becoming his father. And when Kael’thas had named him Regent Lord, it seemed his wish had been granted. He would never endanger a family for his own selfish desires, he’d always told Liadrin, citing the many attempts on his dear cousin the prince’s life. And yet…

He and Lia were not married. Duty to their jobs － him to the Farstriders, her to the priesthood － had prevented it, and then the Scourge had come. And the Burning Legion and Kael’thas’s death. He and Lia were not married. They kept separate households. Few in Silvermoon even knew of their relationship. Liadrin… _was_ technically within her right to do as she pleased. He knew she wanted children. Had always wanted children. If he was honest with himself, the look on her face － when they were seventeen and young and in love － when he’d scorned children for the very first time… It still broke his heart.

And this little girl… this Salandria… was already here. It wasn’t her fault that there was something wrong with him. 

Banishing his father from his mind, Lor’themar took Liadrin’s hand and, very softly, pressed his lips to each of her knuckles. “Can I think about it?” he breathed into her skin.

Lia sounded relieved. “Of course,” she whispered. “You don’t need my permission.” She kissed his nose, a smile playing on her lips. “Take as long as you need.”

He nodded, his hand threading through her sleep-tossed hair to pull her close so he could kiss her forehead. He stood like that a moment, steeling his nerve, his lips pressed to her skin, before grabbing his neglected plate and striding over to the table with more confidence than he felt.

( _You do this every day, with hundreds of adults older and wiser than you. You can breakfast with a child, Lor’themar._ )

“Good morning,” he said cheerfully, hoping he didn’t sound as anxious as he felt. He had long interacted with the children of Silvermoon, but this was… something different entirely.

“Morning,” the little girl mumbled.

“Liadrin told me your name is Salandria. That’s very pretty.” She said nothing, and he felt the stirrings of panic in his gut. “My name is Lor’themar.” 

Silence. 

“I hope I didn’t scare you,” he tried. That always worked with the children he met. “I wouldn’t have shown up so abruptly if I’d known you were here.”

The child frowned. “I wasn’t scared,” she protested. Success!

Though his stomach rolled, he began to eat (and Light, it had gone cold). “That’s good! I would have been.” She giggled, and his stomach unknotted a little. 

“You coming with today?” Salandria asked.

“Where are you going?”

The question seemed to stump her, as though she’d assumed he just knew. She screwed up her face and thought a moment. “Kelldanna.”

“Quel’danas,” Liadrin corrected softly. She slipped into an empty seat, her eyes darting anxiously between Salandria and Lor’themar.

“That,” said Salandria. Lor’themar cracked a grin, and it felt the littlest bit natural. Of course Lia would take her to Quel’Danas. He had half a mind to tease her for it.

“That’s a very important trip,” he told Salandria, rubbing at his eyepatch.

“Like Auchidon?” she said excitedly. Lor’themar looked at Liadrin in confusion. Liadrin shrugged. ( _What on Azeroth is an Auchidon?_ )

“Er. I guess?”

“Wow!” Her eyes grew round as saucers. “You coming right?”

“I have to work.”

“What you do?”

He took a sip of coffee. “I do very boring work for the government.” He didn’t think Liadrin had told her what exactly they did, and he wouldn’t be the one to do so. She wasn’t _his_ child, after all.

Salandria made a face. “That’s gross.” 

Lor’themar laughed, and found it was actually… genuine? “Very.”

* * *

“Congratulations, my friend! Here, hold on.” Halduron reached into one of his many pouches and pulled forth a slightly squished packet of bloodthistle, rolled tightly in crisp leaves. “I was saving this for myself, but I think becoming a father is a better reason to smoke than bedding The Red Augur’s finest!” 

Lor’themar rolled his eye. “I’m not a father,” he muttered. “Keep your post-sex cigar for the brothel.” (The Red Augur was Silvermoon’s most expensive.)

Halduron grinned. “If your _companion_ , as you so adamantly insist on calling her, is with child－”

“She’s not _with child!_ ”

“If she’s _with child_ ,” he continued, “then you’re a father.” He dug in his pockets for a flint. “Indulge with me. Seriously! This is a happy day!”

“Halduron.”

Halduron stopped, looking up under his lashes. “Lor?” He laughed when he saw Lor’themar with his head in his hands. “Lor’themar. There is a child in Silvermoon again! Why are you acting as though the rug’s been ripped from under you?”

Halduron Brightwing was Lor’themar’s closest friend, yet he was at a loss for words. Halduron had had a happy childhood, his family close and lovely. His sister still lived, in Fairbreeze, with his father, and when his mother died, Halduron had wept bitterly. His father was a kind, gentle man who － though clumsy as a newborn cub and like as not to put his own eye out with bow and arrow － carved beautiful woodworks and encouraged Halduron and his sister in everything they did. He didn’t think he could explain to Halduron the terror he felt at Salandria’s intrusion upon his life. 

“Is it because she’s a Scryer child?” Halduron was in his face now, his nose mere inches away. “Because that’s racist, Lor. Or something.”

Lor’themar blinked. “What? No! Shut up, Halduron.”

“Then what’s got your smallclothes in a twist?” Halduron flopped down in a chair, throwing his boots on Lor’themar’s desk. He never had been one for manners. A true child of the forest in ways Lor’themar could never be. (It drove Rommath mad.)

Lor’themar sighed. “Halduron,” he started. “For a moment, just… Put yourself in my boots. You’ve never wanted children. Your companion knows you’ve never wanted children. And then she suddenly comes home with one.” (He could not find the words for _And your father beat you every night for the smallest step out of line, and you don’t know how fathers are supposed to act, and that’s the reason you don’t want children, because you’re afraid you’re just like him. Because you seem calm and composed but sometimes the injustices in this world make you so angry you almost understand why someone would take a hand to someone else, even a child._ )

Halduron fixed him with a long stare, and then snorted. “Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

His friend frowned. “I wouldn’t know, Lor.” His voice was hard, and Lor’themar knew he shouldn’t have said anything. Ten years after the Scourge and Halduron was still too raw. “I wouldn’t know because I did want children. Velonara and I wanted a score of them.” His eyes glinted hard and angry. “We were _supposed_ to have them. And if she showed up right now, if she wasn’t _undead_ and she had _my child_ and they were both _alive_ …” 

“Halduron, stop. I’m sorry－”

“Light _damnit_ , Lor’themar!” Halduron slammed his fist on the desk with such force that he knocked several things over. “ _Your_ wife is alive! She gave you a _child!_ And you don’t even appreciate it?” He stared at Lor’themar as though he’d gone mad. “Some of us would kill for that, do you understand? _I_ would kill for that chance again!”

“It’s not that I don’t appreci－”

“Then what’s wrong with you?!”

“I’m _afraid_ , Halduron!”

Halduron actually laughed at this. “We’re all afraid, Lor! You think I wouldn’t have been terrified to hold my own baby?”

“That’s not what－”

“Then _what?_ ”

He couldn’t talk to Halduron when he was like this. The Scourge had embittered his friend, had taken from him his fiancée and his future and left him a shell of who he had been, and sometimes, sometimes Lor’themar felt the same. Except it wasn’t the Scourge that had done that to him.

“Halduron, the way you feel about the Scourge is the way I feel about my father,” he sighed. 

“The fuck does that mean?” 

He had never told Halduron about his father. He had left House Theron long behind by the time they had met. Halduron had never seen him cowering and covered in bruises where people couldn’t see. Halduron had never seen him afraid. Halduron only knew him as the strong, confident ranger.

“Think about it.” Lor’themar tamped down his own anger. It was useless to snap at Halduron when he was angry like this. It wouldn’t help. “I need to take a walk.”

It was near evening when Halduron returned, this time to Lor’themar’s home. All he said, when Lor’themar opened his front door (he did not believe in servants), was, “Shit, Lor,” and wrapped his arms around the regent lord in a bone-crushing embrace. He did not ask for details and Lor’themar did not supply them. His father was the one subject he did not like to discuss. Only Lia knew everything, and only because she was there. If the sanctum had not been so close to his family home, he did not know what he would have done all those years ago.

* * *

Salandria made him nervous, and Lor’themar did not like to be around her without Lia as a buffer. She was young, so young… nearly as young as the very first time he had ever met Liadrin. And she was loud, and impetuous, and demanding. She _terrified_ him. Liadrin had told him to be sure Salandria did not get out of hand, but Lor’themar had no idea how to even _do_ that. 

“Lor’themar,” she’d asked him this morning. She’d arrived, knapsack in one hand and Salandria’s in the other. “I have to fly to Quel’Danas this afternoon.”

The unspoken question lingered in the air. She did not ask it, aware that once she did, Lor’themar would be unable to refuse her － because he was never able to say no to her － and he knew that by not asking, she was giving him every opportunity to present an excuse. To say without saying _I am not comfortable watching this child without you._

He nodded. “When, ah… should I expect you back?”

“Tonight, I should think.” She hesitated. “Is Halduron around?”

Halduron would altogether be a much better choice for a babysitter. Indeed, he delighted in caring for his nephew, when his sister visited. 

“Mother says I can’t go,” Salandria offered. “Too much old people talk.”

Lia’s face positively glowed as she looked down at the little girl. “You won’t sit still,” she said affectionately. 

“I’ll take her,” Lor’themar said. Something about the look in Lia’s eyes, the closeness between her and her… _daughter_. It stirred something in him, even as his heart thudded painfully.

Liadrin’s eyebrows shot up. “You will?”

He nodded, before he lost his nerve. “Halduron and I,” he corrected. He understood that he would still have Salandria without Liadrin. But he knew Halduron would not mind being roped into childcare (honestly, he would probably enjoy the afternoon slacking off), and the thought of Halduron with him soothed him. 

“O-okay then.” Liadrin could hardly contain her smile. If they weren’t in the Spire, she would have kissed him. (They never kissed in the Spire. Their personal lives and professional lives never met… today being the exception.) She knelt before Salandria, her hands on the little girl’s face.

“You be _very good_ for your Uncle Lor’themar,” she said sternly. She tucked a lock of cornsilk hair (the same shade as his own, Lor’themar had never failed to notice) behind Salandria’s ear. “He’s working today, and it’s very important.”

Salandria frowned. “Wanna go play.”

“No.” Liadrin booped her nose gently with a finger, and Lor’themar suppressed a smile. “We’ll play when I get home.” To Lor’themar she said, “I packed her paper and colored wax. She draws beautifully.”

“Oh?”

“I do!” Salandria boasted. 

“Maybe she’ll draw something for you.” Liadrin grinned, and gave him the faintest wave with three fingers. A small sign, a symbol of affection they had shared nearly as long as they had known each other. Lor’themar called it their public kiss.

And indeed Salandria did draw. As soon as Liadrin had left, she settled herself on the floor, papers and wax sticks everywhere, and began scribbling. Lor’themar read, and signed documents, and wrote correspondence, and when his assistance came with his lunch, Salandria declared that moonberry juice was her _most favoritest_ thing in the world. (He sent his assistant back for a second plate and gave Salandria his own.)

But she _distracted_ him, not least of all because she flew through her coloring like a girl possessed. Lor’themar had seen trolls perform voodoo with less vigor than this child, and finally his curiosity got the better of him. He pushed his chair back and carefully tiptoed over, as though Salandria were a wild lynx he were trying to trap.

“What are you drawing?” he asked.

Salandria looked over her shoulder. She didn’t seem surprised to see him. “I did a story,” she said proudly. “But now doing a picture.”

“Oh?”

“Yes!” She shuffled aside, the better to show him her paper. It was quite good for a six year old, with thick, distinct lines forming a house, and a happy golden sun in the corner. In the house were three figures, not quite finished.

“Who are they?” he asked. 

“This one is me!” Salandria crowed, jabbing her small finger at the littlest figure. That one was easy, by height alone. “This one is Mother! See? Used the… the same yellow as the sun! For her eyes!” Her eyes must have been very important, for the Lia figure had yet to be given hair, but her golden eyes were rendered quite beautifully, in near perfect circles. 

“Who’s this?” Lor’themar asked, his eye falling to the last, but the words died in his throat. Taking it in － the same pale yellow hair as the Salandria figure, the same high tail as his own…

“Um…” Salandria suddenly seemed sheepish. “That one’s… That one’s you. Be-because you... Because we had dinner last night!” She started babbling in great detail about the food, and grabbing several wax sticks to draw it, and Lor’themar felt like he was underwater. He wondered, vaguely, just how many of these sorts of pictures Salandria had drawn. How many of them looked as… _familiar_ as this. His heart thudded against his ribs.

Salandria left him that picture, when Liadrin picked her up, and Lor’themar stared at it for a long time. He took it home and stared at it some more. He poured himself a glass of wine, and packed a pipe with thistle (and blew the smoke carefully away from the drawing), and just _looked_ at it. Completed, the picture looked very cozy. They looked like… _a family._

Lor’themar shivered.

* * *

“Salandria, come here! Uncle Halduron will teach you how to ride a hawkstrider!”

“You’re not her uncle.”

Halduron grinned, scooping the little girl up as though she weighed little more than air. “Neither are you.”

“Hush!” 

Halduron stuck his tongue out. Salandria, not understanding the talk, stuck her tongue out as well. 

“Hawkstriders!” she shrieked. “Let’s go!”

“Alright!” Halduron cheered. “Now, the first thing about hawkstriders is learning how to hang on.”

“I can hang on!”

“Can you?” Halduron challenged. “Lor, c’mere.”

Lor’themar stepped forward cautiously, half expecting Halduron to throw something at him. 

“Ever had a hawkback ride?”

Salandria’s eyes widened. “No! What’s that?”

“It’s where I throw you on Lor’s back and he runs around like a bird, kiddo!” And Halduron did just that before Lor’themar had time to protest. “Go ahead, Lor.” Halduron grinned. “Be a bird.” 

Lor’themar glared at him. The effect was rather sinister with the eyepatch, he’d been told, but Halduron wasn’t bothered, leaning against the stable easily. Lor’themar shifted Salandria on his back a bit.

“You holding on tight?” he asked her.

“Yes!” She had a fistful of his hair where she clutched at his shoulder.

“Go, hawkie, go!” Halduron cheered. “I’ve got to ask my sister to visit. We could race.”

The best hawkback rides, in Halduron’s opinion, were always when the ‘hawkstrider’ acted like a bird. Lor’themar tucked his arms in and flapped them occasionally, shrieking in an excellent imitation of his own Thas’diel’s cry, and stomped his feet. Salandria screamed in his ear, her hair flying, and Halduron grinned like the menace he was. Lor’themar had seen him many a time do the same for his nephew and despite how silly he felt, he found himself having quite a lot of fun.

“Still want to try a real bird?” he panted, out of breath.

“Yes!” Salandria gasped. She wrapped her arms around Lor’themar’s neck, her cheek flush against his and warm. “Is there a pink one?”

Halduron thought. “I think Beli’orah is here,” he mused. He left them for a moment to peek into the stables, Lor’themar breathing hard from exertion and Salandria from excitement. She nuzzled against his cheek. 

“Are you having fun?” he asked.

“So much fun,” she said, with a little less gusto.

Lor’themar frowned. “You alright?”

Salandria wriggled uncomfortably. “I’ve… Um. Never seed. Never _saw_ a hawkstrider.”

Carefully Lor’themar extracted one hand and reached up to squeeze her hand. “It’s okay,” he told her. “Beli’orah is a good bird. He’s very kind.”

Scared of hawkstriders, of all things. Then again, Lor’themar had been riding since before he could remember. He supposed, if he thought about it, they _were_ scary. Their sharp, cruel beaks and powerful talons. Loud, terrifying shrieks. Long, powerful legs, and their fierce sense of pride. He’d been bitten and kicked by his fair share of hawkstriders, and his father’s had been a _monster_ (fitting, he’d always thought bitterly), but he’d always thought them a perfect metaphor for the blood elves themselves. Haughty and proud, beautiful and dangerous. 

A metaphor far too advanced for a child to understand.

Carefully he lowered himself to the ground and allowed Salandria to slide off his back. He stayed on his knee beside her. “Uncle Halduron will hold the reins,” he promised her, “and I’ll stay right beside you.” Salandria looked up at him, her green eyes wide and _trusting_ , and Lor’themar felt his heart thump painfully. 

Halduron returned just then, leading not pink Beli’orah but his own blue Dal’diel. “I’m sorry, Salandria,” he said. “Beli’orah’s been taken out. But this is Dal’diel and he’s my hawkstrider. He’s a very good bird.”

Dal’diel was well trained, and Halduron held his reins for Salandria’s benefit, Lor’themar knew. He’d been saddled and bridled, and scratched anxiously in the dirt, his long black talons deftly searching for bugs while he waited. (Hawkstriders didn’t necessarily _eat_ bugs, but Dal’diel, Lor’themar had found, was an opportunist.) His crest raised as he took in the smells of fresh air, and he turned his head to better look at them with one large, orange eye. Salandria, by Lor’themar’s side, huddled close.

“It’s alright,” he clucked. This was something he could do. Hawkstriders. Coaxing the anxious onto them. He’d done it many a time in the Farstriders, many new recruits never even having ridden before being sent to Farstrider Enclave and still nervous around their birds. Riding was an anxious thing. “He’s very tall, isn’t he? He’s as tall as Halduron.”

Salandria nodded, curled into herself.

Lor’themar pointed as he spoke. “That color is called royal blue. He’s a special kind of color, very rare.” He rubbed Salandria’s back comfortingly. “He blends in very nicely with the shadows in the forest.”

“The forest?”

He nodded. “That’s where hawkstriders go, with their rangers,” he explained. “See his legs? They’re made for running and charging through the brush.”

“They don’t fly?”

Lor’themar chuckled. “No, they don’t fly. Dal’diel’s got very short wings, see? He can’t get off the ground anymore than you can.”

“Do _you_ have a hawkstrider?” Salandria asked quietly.

“I do.” Sunwell only knew when he’d last ridden the poor thing. “He’s green. Uncle Halduron here takes care of him for me. And sometimes, when I need to do _boring work things_ , I ride a white hawkstrider.”

“Are all hawkstriders boys?”

Lor’themar shook his head. “Of course not,” he said gently. “The Farstriders － your Uncle Halduron － only use boys.”

“Why?”

_Because female hawkstriders are insane, vicious, bloodthirsty murder machines._

“Girl hawkstriders are mean,” he said after a moment. “They’re ridden to battle, and we don’t battle often.”

Salandria nodded. “Mother said when, when she first came a… a pall-din, she had a hawkstrider.”

Halduron snorted. Lor’themar shot him a look. “Your mother had a beautiful boy hawkstrider,” he told her. “He wasn’t well suited to carrying her in her armor. It’s _very_ heavy. That’s why she has Redemption.”

(Her hawkstrider had always had a temper, for a male, and the first time she’d tried to ride him in plate armor, he’d thrown her. He’d helped Lia find a suitable mount very quickly after that.)

“I like him,” Salandria said. “Redemption. He does a… a pfft!” She imitated the horse’s snort and Lor’themar laughed. Dal’diel, as attention seeking as his master, chose that moment to cry pitifully at being ignored, warbling loudly and taking a purposeful step towards them.

“Dal,” Halduron scolded, but Salandria shrieked. Dal’diel flapped his wings indignantly, clicking his beak at Halduron, and Salandria buried her face in Lor’themar’s shoulder.

“Hey, hey,” he soothed, stroking her hair. “It’s alright. He’s a big baby.” Salandria shuddered when Dal’diel shrieked again. “He just wants attention.”

Salandria shook her head, throwing her arms around Lor’themar tightly. “Don’t wanna don’t wanna don’t wanna,” she chanted, and her voice shook with every word. Dal’diel was glaring at Halduron, chittering irritably, because now _no one_ was looking at him.

“Is she okay?” Halduron asked.

“Dal’diel’s scaring her,” Lor’themar told him.

“You’re such a brat,” Halduron told his bird. “Can’t handle anyone talking to anyone but you.” Dal’diel stamped his feet.

“Wanna go home wanna go home wanna go home!” Salandria was starting to melt down, in the way only a child could, and between her crying and the hawkstrider crowing and Halduron swearing, Lor’themar didn’t think he could contain himself.

“Hey.” He caught Halduron’s eye as Dal’diel started acting up. “I’m out of the office for the rest of the afternoon. Okay? Tell Lia I took Salandria home.”

Halduron nodded, his attention focused on his hawkstrider. “Should’ve taken you out this morning,” he was grumbling. “Pent up bastard.”

“Come here, Salandria,” Lor’themar said gently. Salandria let him gather her in his arms, howling, and before he thought of the implications, he left the stableyard.

Liadrin was worried when she returned that night. Lor’themar had let himself into her home, as Salandria had wanted, and the little girl had screamed herself out shortly after, falling asleep on the floor. He’d put her to bed and fretted and worried he’d done something wrong, but Liadrin assured him he was fine, mistakes happen, and it wasn’t _his_ mistake but _a_ mistake, and they were two entirely different things. 

* * *

He wasn’t sure when he started thinking of her as _Salandria_ instead of _the child_ and it made his heart flutter to think of her as, maybe, _theirs_ instead of _Lia’s_. Liadrin had been reading to him as they lay in bed but she’d been distracted, and finally he said something.

“It’s Salandria.”

“Oh?” Lor’themar gently rubbed at the temple near his empty eye socket. Salandria had given him a good whack earlier by mistake. He hoped Lia wasn’t angry with her.

“Rommath and I have discussed taking a team down to Deatholme,” Lia was saying. “You know the Farstriders are there.”

“Mm.”

“What would I do with Salandria?” She was toying anxiously with a strand of his long hair. “I want her nowhere near the south － she’s only a child, Lor’themar. Halduron’s already down there and I don’t feel right asking Astalor…”

The response came naturally. Automatically. It felt _right_ to offer.

“You can leave her with me.”

Liadrin broke off in a stutter, and turned to look at him, eyes searching his. “What?”

“Salandria,” he said again. His stomach felt as though he’d swallowed a thousand butterflies. “When you go, you can leave her with me.” He rubbed soft circles along her back, playing with the ends of her hair.

“Lor’the…” Lia stared at him. “Two weeks. I’ll be gone at least two weeks.”

“Yes.”

“If we take Deatholme, it’ll be even longer.” She rolled onto her stomach, pressed terribly close against him, her hand flat to his stomach. The book lay forgotten somewhere alongside them.

“I know,” he told her. He drew a slightly shaky breath. He’d never been alone with Salandria that long. Maybe 36 hours before. But…

“I don’t want you to worry,” he murmured. “And I don’t want her to be scared.” He drew another shaky breath. “She knows my home. She knows _me._ ”

Liadrin’s hand clenched against his chest, her nails scraping lightly against his bare skin. “That’s a long time,” she whispered. 

“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “But I love her and I－”

“You what?”

A part of him froze, realizing what he’d just said.

“I love you,” he said slowly, his hand coming to rest atop hers, “and because of that, I love her. But… I love her because she’s Salandria too.” He closed his eye, breathed deeply. “By the Sunwell, I’m fucking _terrified_ , Lia.”

She shifted, pressing closer to him, and her voice came close by his ear. “I know.”

“But… I’d like to try?” His voice broke and for a moment he felt like he was seventeen and having the same conversation all over again. “For those two weeks, I’d like to try being her father.”

He’d always known Liadrin was emotional. Hers was a quiet heat that simmered just below the surface, a volcano that erupted once every few hundred years. In that moment, she was molten, her joy a tangible thing as she held him and kissed him, tears pricking the corners of her eyes. His Lia was strong and he would never deny she wasn’t, but there was a softness in her, a softness she denied, that he craved. She’d buried it deep, with every sorrow to strike her life. When the trolls struck at her village, when his father stormed the sanctum. When Zul’jin attacked, and the Scourge came, and Kael’thas betrayed them all. But here, with him, she had always let him see. And now, with Salandria… He saw it in her eyes, when she looked at the little girl. When she smoothed Salandria’s hair and kissed her goodnight, fitted her for training armor and taught her how to move. Lia became hazy round the edges, the rough edge to her voice becoming rounder, and Lor’themar couldn’t find the words to describe how it made him feel. 

He would do anything for Liadrin. He had known that since he was thirteen years old, bruised and bloody and embarrassed at this girl he barely knew unashamedly washing the grime from his naked torso. He was desperate for this little girl, for Salandria, to love him, as he had never loved his own father. He was scared he’d fuck up, because don’t all little boys turn into their fathers? But… 

Salandria made Lia so happy. He had never understood how much he’d asked her to sacrifice when he’d told her at seventeen years old he did not want children. He’d never understood just much she’d loved him that she’d actually done it.

For two weeks, he’d try. All on his own. And when she returned, they would talk. Really talk. He owed her that much, he thought.

* * *

He’d spent the weekend preparing. He took note of how Salandria’s room in Lia’s apartments looked, the soft bedspread, the toys, the drawings and colored wax sticks scattered everywhere. He kept lists of foods he knew she liked to eat. He sent his assistant to buy things during the day, and he tore apart his spare room at night. His spare ranger gear (that he would never again use, he knew) he put in storage. His old, comfortable woolen blanket went in the linen closet. Liadrin had a servant, living in the private quarters of the Spire, but Lor’themar did not, would not, and he wondered if that would affect his parenting. He cooked for himself, while Liadrin’s maid cooked for them. (He hoped he could make food Salandria would like. Liadrin had deemed several of his dishes inedible.) He refused even Halduron’s help. He thought that would be cheating.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when Liadrin let herself in, Salandria in tow. She came prepared with clothes, her pillow from home, and her favorite stuffed elekk. The anxiety in the room could be bottled and sold to all of Silvermoon.

“Are you sure you’ll be alright?” Liadrin asked. She’d placed Salandria’s knapsack, stuffed to the brim, on his divan.

“We’ll be fine, Lia,” he said, with a confidence he didn’t quite feel. “You’ll keep everyone waiting. Go on.”

Liadrin nodded, dropping to one knee. Salandria hugged her elekk tight to her chest and peered at Lia through her lashes. 

“You must be good for Lor’themar,” Lia impressed. “I’ll home the week after next.” 

Salandria gave the smallest of nods. She shook a little.

“I _will_ come back to you,” Liadrin promised. “I will always come back.” She pulled her daughter close and Salandria hugged back fiercely, the elekk forgotten. Lia kissed her hair and kissed her forehead and smoothed her bangs away from her face.

“Lor’themar will be with you the entire time,” she swore.

“Okay.” Salandria’s voice sounded very small.

Liadrin hugged her again, once more, unable to help herself. She had never been gone from Salandria so long, and it felt like such a private moment that Lor’themar looked away. When she rose, she hugged him as well, tightly.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her voice catching, and he held her close, stroking her hair and assuring her that they would be fine, really, and it was only two weeks. She smiled at him, and when he saw her out, she kissed him gently, and Lor’themar’s heart flipped at that. She must be worried if she’d kiss him in front of Salandria. She’d been very careful not to, in case...

“Go,” he urged her. “The sooner you leave, the sooner you’ll return.”

And then she was gone, and it was him and Salandria in his townhome, and suddenly he felt not as sure as he’d been five minutes ago.

“Let’s, ah… let’s get you settled in your room?”

* * *

Salandria was prone to nightmares, he’d found. She screamed him awake her very first night.

“Salandria? Salandria!” Lor’themar’d crashed into her room and Salandria had sobbed, shooting into his arms, shaking and snotting and screaming about red orcs and giant black machines, and when she wouldn’t let him leave, he curled up with her in her bed and held her until she fell back asleep, her cheeks streaked with trails of salt, and he himself stayed awake all night as though that would keep her dreams sweet.

She had tantrums, he found, and bad ones. He managed to talk her through two of them, as though she were an adult, because he just… didn’t _know_ how to talk to children and didn’t feel right yelling at her, but when she threw a fit over a _bath_ of all things, and refused to calm down for anything, Lor’themar found himself with fraying patience and, afraid, sent her to her room. He didn’t know if that was the right thing to do or not. But she took the bath in the end, so perhaps… it worked?

And she was smart. By the Sunwell, she was smart. Liadrin did not brag. A priestess at heart, humble was in her nature, and it was not until those two weeks that Lor’themar learned astonishing things about his charged. Salandria spoke three languages. Three! At the age of six! The Scryers had taught her Thalassian, of course, and Common had become the interplanetary language of trade in Shattrath. And though it shocked him at first, he soon realized that it shouldn’t surprise him at all that she also spoke Draenei, because Draenei was the common language of Outland, was it not?

“How do you keep them straight?” he asked her in wonder.

Salandria shrugged. “I just… Who I talked to.” She thought. “I looked at people. And I just… _know._ ” They had just had dinner. He had managed to persuade her to eat tubers. Salandria had thought they looked “gross,” but he’d fried them until they were golden brown and crunchy, in a bed of soft green vegetables, and when he promised to eat them with her, one two three, she relented. She’d liked them in the end, and had asked for seconds. 

Now she sat before him, still as you please, as he tried his hardest to give her _hair like yours!_ Salandria had a fourth as much of his hair, but he was sure he could pull some of it into a tail, and perhaps some braids. Any elf his age could pull off a decent braid.

He laughed. “So when you looked at me, you knew I spoke Thalassian?”

“Yes,” she said firmly. Now that he thought about it, when they’d first met, she’d had an accent. It was no longer there, and he almost missed it. He threaded his fingers through her short cornsilk hair, carefully pulling the crown into a high tail.

“Can I ask you something?” she asked suddenly.

“Of course.” He wound a ribbon around her hair, decided he didn’t like it, and let it fall. Then he gathered her hair again, a bit lower this time.

“You love Mother?”

Lor’themar’s hands never faltered. This child was perceptive, and he felt… He felt if he told her, she wouldn’t babble it all over the Spire. She hadn’t so far, at least. “Very much,” he said softly. “Since I was fifteen years old.”

“How old are you now?”

He chuckled. “Old. Fourteen hundred and thirty-six.”

Salandria sucked in a breath. “Whoa.”

“I know.”

“That’s… Is that a long time?”

“A very long time,” Lor’themar affirmed. “We met when we were a little older than you.”

Salandria thought about this. Her high tail done, Lor’themar carefully pulled a strand of her hair free to braid it. It wouldn’t be like his, but perhaps she’d like it.

“Why you not married?”

“Why do we have to be?” he threw back.

“That’s just…” Salandria faltered. “Matron Mercy says. She says it’s what people do. When they love each other.”

“Who’s Matron Mercy?”

“At the… the orphanage.”

“Hmm.” He was willing to bet Matron Mercy was a draenei. Lor’themar wasn’t about to go into the differences between draenei and sin’dorei beliefs with a six year old. (Halduron alone would scandalize the entire puritan draenei race into an early grave.) Carefully he secured his first braid and began another. “Sometimes,” he decided on. “Not always.”

“Why?”

“Everyone is different,” he explained. “Your mother and I… We’re very private people. We don’t like other people knowing our personal lives.”

“Is that why Mother didn’t take me with?”

“Partly. Where she went is also very dangerous. No place for a little girl.”

“I’m not little!” Salandria protested.

“You seem very little to me.” Lor’themar grinned.

Salandria jumped up, scowling. “No! I’m not too little! You’re just… just…” She pouted. “You’re just _too big!_ ” 

Lor’themar burst out laughing. “I’m too big?”

“Yes! You’re _ginormous!_ ” Salandria insisted.

“I think I’m perfectly elf sized.”

That answer didn’t seem to satisfy Salandria, who launched herself at him, half done hair coming apart, and Lor’themar had to fight back, tickling her mercilessly.

“N-no fair!” Salandria shrieked.

“It’s all fair!” Lor’themar crowed, pinning her to the divan. Her hair was ruined, and she grabbed a pillow and tried to hit him with it, and they laughed until their bellies ached, and when they collapsed, gasping for breath, Lor’themar thought to himself that he didn’t know if fathers talked like this with their children, or played like this, but the way Salandria laughed made it seem right. 

And when he put her to bed that night, half asleep and complaining she wasn’t, she curled around her stuffed elekk and mumbled, “love you, Father, goodnight,” in one long word, and Lor’themar could have died right there.

He tucked the blankets around her and smoothed the hair from her face, and when he spoke, it came out in a shaky whisper.

“Goodnight, Salandria. I love you.”

* * *

“She called me Father,” he’d told Lia breathlessly. She’d come home dirty and tired and hugged and kissed them both, and he nearly stormed into the wash room to talk to her right then, but he’d controlled himself. He’d made dinner. He’d waited while Lia put Salandria to bed. He’d listened as she told him about the Ghostlands campaign. His legendary patience ought to have won him a medal. 

And they’d talked, as he’d promised they would. Really, seriously talked. Lia had cried. He’d cried. They still would not marry. The Scourge had dashed that dream, and neither was willing to cede their home to the other. He was adamant that Salandria not retain his name. He wanted no part of his father near that girl. And yes, he was still afraid － deathly afraid － of making a mistake, of the rage that both sides of his family were so well known for rearing its ugly head. But the glimpses he’d had of life with Lia and Saladrin the past few months, the two weeks he’d spent with the little girl alone… He wanted more of that. Lia believed in him. He had known Lia since he was fourteen years old, had fallen in love with her and trusted her as a child. If she believed he was good, then he had to give himself the same chance.

* * *

He was antsy. He couldn’t sit still. He and Lia had planned to talk to Salandria tonight. They had a nice dinner arranged at Liadrin’s apartments. He could surely wait four more hours. 

He told himself this as he walked outside, his fancy boots soundless on the grass. His feet knew the way without his brain giving direction and he found himself in the training yard. All of the recruits had left, gear scattered about the dirt and thrown haphazard over dummies. He watched Lia instruct Salandria, arranging her arms this way and that, straightening her back. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but he could imagine. He’d seen Lia train enough recruits.

“No one will get through that defense!” he called, loping over easily.

“Look!” Salandria shouted. She held a wooden training sword. “Like a turtle! A… a spike turtle!”

“A turtle!” he agreed.

Liadrin laughed. “Mm, a spiky turtle.”

“What are you doing here?” Salandria asked him.

“Training,” he said, as though it were obvious.

“You can’t train in that,” Lia teased.

“Oh I can attempt!” He flung his ridiculous cape over his shoulder and sunk into fighting stance. He might have been old, but he could still fight.

_Whack!_

“Got your arm! Got your arm!” Salandria giggled. “I cutted your arm off!”

Lor’themar gave a dramatic gasp. “I’ve no arm _and_ no eye now?”

“What a catch,” Lia laughed.

“No!” Salandria pouted. “I cutted your… your _arm!_ You still got a eye!”

“So I’ve two eyes then?”

“Yes!”

“Did you hear that, Lia? I can wink at you again!” He blinked at her with his single eye. “Did you see?”

Lia rolled her own eyes, but Lor’themar caught the smile she tried to hide. She’d always pretended not to be amused by his antics, but he knew better. “What can we do for you, Lor’themar?” she asked, trying to be serious. 

“Yes! What can _we_ do for _you?_ ” Salandria echoed. She pulled herself into a military salute.

Lor’themar chuckled. “Actually. I’ve come to see you, Salandria.” 

He couldn’t wait four more hours.

Salandria blinked. “Me?” He heard Lia’s sharp intake of breath. 

“Yes,” he said firmly. He knelt down to better look at her in the eye. “You.”

Salandria considered this for a long moment before crossing her thin arms across her chest in an imitation of her mother that made Lor’themar’s heart swell. “What’chu want?”

He felt suddenly nervous. He’d planned to do this with Lia at his side, Lia supporting him. To suddenly stand with her across from him rather than beside was daunting, and the way Salandria looked at him haughtily… 

He fighted. “Well.” The words felt stuck in his throat. Was there a right way to do this? She’d already called him Father, but she’d been asleep. Did it even count? “Salandria.”

She was staring at him. Expectant. Waiting. 

His heart hammered so loudly he could hardly hear himself speak. “What would you say… if… I asked… to be your father?”

There. He’d said it. The question was there, out in the open, his heart laid bare for a six year old girl to treat as she saw fit. He hadn’t realized until this second how much the answer meant to him.

Salandria was looking at him oddly. Lia looked nearly about to cry again. He should have waited. He should have done this at home, like they’d planned. Why had he thought he could parent a little girl when he didn’t have the patience to－

“Aren’t you already?”

What?

Lor’themar stared at her. He wasn’t sure he’d heard right. What did he know about fathers? 

But then what she said hit him. It hadn’t been a sleepy mistake. Salandria was here, wide awake. She’d just said he was her father. His eye widened, and when he reached for her she fell into his arms like she’d been there her entire life. He felt her tiny heart pound wildly against his chest, and his eye burned.

“Yes,” he breathed into her hair. This terrifying pitter patter heartbeat he felt wasn’t the love he felt for Lia but it was love all the same, for the little girl safe in his arms. “I was just making sure you knew.” 

He felt Lia’s hand on his shoulder, and he made a noise somewhere between a choked laugh and a choked sob, and there were arms around him － Lia’s, Salandria’s. His kissed his daughter’s cheeks － _his daughter_ － and kissed Lia’s warm lips and in that small moment didn’t give a damn who saw.

* * *

Lor’themar suffered from nightmares too. Sometimes he dreamt of the Scourge, the undead he saw slaughtering his friends and kin as he tried in vain to keep them at bay. Other times, he dreamt of the torture he’d suffered at the hands of Zul’jin, his near disembowelment. For most of his life, he’d dreamt of his father. His father’s biting words and cold smile. The dark cellar. The whip or the belt or the back of his hand. He’d wake with phantom pains in his ribs, his scars aching. 

Lor’themar had run away from home more than once as a child. His father had always dragged him back. Joining the Farstriders had been his salvation. All that running away had taught him how to live well in the woods. Meeting Liadrin had taught him why he’d needed to keep living.

Liadrin was the only family Lor’themar had ever needed. The Farstriders gave him a modicum of protection, when he was called into the city, but it was never enough. He itched to leave the moment he set foot in it, long after his father died, and even now, at fourteen hundred and thirty-six, Lor’themar felt caged by the city. It made him feel trapped. It was why he did not live in the Spire. 

But for Liadrin he could. For Liadrin he could endure anything. 

He was no stranger to nightmares. No elf was.

Salandria had fallen into his life like an unwanted gift but a gift she was. Even in death, his father controlled him so tightly he couldn’t breathe. She’d cut the noose, and for the first time in fourteen hundred and thirty-six years, his family was complete. It was unconventional, and it was his. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Halduron's story is referenced in another work of mine, [Little Lynx](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24211186)


End file.
